FORGET about Paris and Prague, Manchester is now one of the hottest destinations for weekend breaks.

Huge investment in attractions and a year-long events programme have paid off, with the annual number of visitors to Britain's second city rising by 13m in just five years.

And tourism chiefs have tipped Manchester's "truly thriving" reputation as a short-break destination to get another major boost when it launches it inaugural international arts festival next year.

Hotels are now three-quarters full for five months of the year and tourism is now worth an estimated £2.39bn to Greater Manchester.

Rising figures

Recent figures show visitor numbers rose from 77.1m in 1999 to 90.7m in 2004. The number of tourism-related jobs went up from 31,538 to 39,976 in the same period.

New attractions have combined with traditional favourites to boost Greater Manchester's reputation as a place to see, with the Museum of Science and Industry attracting nearly 500,000 visitors a year and the Lowry, Manchester Art Gallery, the Imperial War Museum North and Manchester United's Museum and Tour Centre attracting 200,000 or more. And Urbis, the gallery of city life, is not far behind.

Manchester has already closed the gap on Edinburgh as Britain's most popular tourist destination after London from 350,000 visitors a year in 2000 to 170,000 in 2004. Most visitors come from Ireland, with Americans, Germans, the French and Spanish also in the top five.

Regeneration

The tourist boom has reached such levels Marketing Manchester, the tourist board for Greater Manchester, has begun offering hotel accommodation over the phone and on its website, www.visitmanchester.com, 24 hours a day.

Chief executive Andrew Stokes said: "As a result of the regeneration of Manchester, and of the increased flight routes to Manchester Airport, the city's popularity as a short break destination is thriving.

"The city's culture, creativity and charm is expressed in the array activities, from speciality markets and sporting events to Manchester Pride and the much anticipated Manchester International Festival.

"The excellent transport links and hotels further enhance the city's tourism offering."

FORGET about Paris and Prague, Manchester is now one of the hottest destinations for weekend breaks.

Huge investment in attractions and a year-long events programme have paid off, with the annual number of visitors to Britain's second city rising by 13m in just five years.

And tourism chiefs have tipped Manchester's "truly thriving" reputation as a short-break destination to get another major boost when it launches it inaugural international arts festival next year.

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Hotels are now three-quarters full for five months of the year and tourism is now worth an estimated £2.39bn to Greater Manchester.

Rising figures

Recent figures show visitor numbers rose from 77.1m in 1999 to 90.7m in 2004. The number of tourism-related jobs went up from 31,538 to 39,976 in the same period.

New attractions have combined with traditional favourites to boost Greater Manchester's reputation as a place to see, with the Museum of Science and Industry attracting nearly 500,000 visitors a year and the Lowry, Manchester Art Gallery, the Imperial War Museum North and Manchester United's Museum and Tour Centre attracting 200,000 or more. And Urbis, the gallery of city life, is not far behind.

Manchester has already closed the gap on Edinburgh as Britain's most popular tourist destination after London from 350,000 visitors a year in 2000 to 170,000 in 2004. Most visitors come from Ireland, with Americans, Germans, the French and Spanish also in the top five.

Regeneration

The tourist boom has reached such levels Marketing Manchester, the tourist board for Greater Manchester, has begun offering hotel accommodation over the phone and on its website, www.visitmanchester.com, 24 hours a day.

Chief executive Andrew Stokes said: "As a result of the regeneration of Manchester, and of the increased flight routes to Manchester Airport, the city's popularity as a short break destination is thriving.

"The city's culture, creativity and charm is expressed in the array activities, from speciality markets and sporting events to Manchester Pride and the much anticipated Manchester International Festival.

"The excellent transport links and hotels further enhance the city's tourism offering."

I often get the train from platform 14 at picc station. looking down on the road
within the last couple of weeks, two huge concrete cores have shot up behind the curved ex-BT building.
I would be delighted if anyone could enlighten me as to whats going up? I hope its not more 'key' worker social housing.

__________________We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors we borrow it from our children.

Yeah God forbid poor people should be able to find somewhere to live.
They have got such a cheek haven't they? If they are not providing 'key services' they are cluttering up our beautiful middle class city centre with all their social housing and lottery tickets and fags and alco pops and pit bull terriers and the like.
I shall be writing to the Daily Mail to complain!

Few posts have passed but, nice work with that image Manc Guy, have you gotten that proficient with Sketchup via trial and error? I got my hands on it recently and did a few tutorials but I've not really been able to create anything like that just yet, trying really to work out how to do non-standard shapes and curves.

Yeah God forbid poor people should be able to find somewhere to live.
They have got such a cheek haven't they? If they are not providing 'key services' they are cluttering up our beautiful middle class city centre with all their social housing and lottery tickets and fags and alco pops and pit bull terriers and the like.
I shall be writing to the Daily Mail to complain!

Can you add my name to that letter, those cheeky poor people, how very dare they

__________________ The more people I meet the more I become a cat person.